Profits at Microsoft Slump Again As Recession Bites

Microsoft Corp. has announced that its earnings as well as profits for the quarter ending June 30 fell sharply amidst slumping demand in global PC and server markets.

The company notified that its net profit for the last quarter was $3.1 billion, dropped substantially by 29 percent as against the profits posted for the same period a year back In addition, revenues for the company were pegged at $13.1 billion, down by a notable 17 percent from a year ago.

The last quarter marked the end of the company’s fiscal year, and the world’s largest software company noted that its profits for the entire year plunged by 18 percent from the previous year to $14.57 billion, or $1.62 per share of stock.

Quarterly revenues for the company’s fourth quarter didn’t even manage to beat the analysts’ prediction of $14.4 billion, and it came as the second consecutive quarter for which the sales for the company dropped from year-ago levels.

On a conference call with the analysts, Microsoft’s CFO Chris Liddell said in a statement, “The fourth quarter was one of the most difficult, but in some ways encouraging, in the company's history. We are a stronger company than we were a year ago, but the economy continues to be challenging”.

Incidentally, until the last quarter, the software company had never seen negative results since going public 23 years back.

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Our Comments

Microsoft, unlike Apple, is not immune to what's happening around it. The sofrware giant has been hit hard by the double whammy of consumers reigning on superfluous expenses while companies defer any hardware and software upgrades by several months if not more.